using ftp-remote-edit with atom

The CS labs in the Science Center and Clothier basement (C16) are the best place for you to work on lab assignments. That said, it can sometimes be convenient to work on your labs from your own computer. This page explains how you can remotely access your CS lab files through Atom if you want to work from home. If these instructions do not work as advertised, bring your laptop to lab or to a ninja session for help setting up remote access.

Overview: you will be installing atom on your laptop and running it on your laptop. You will also install an atom package (ftp-remote-edit) that will connect to our CS machines and transfer any edits back and forth between your laptop and the CS machines.

Atom/ftp-remote-edit

Here are the steps to install atom with ftp-remote-edit on your laptop or home machine:

Download Atom
Open Atom (might need to save it to your Applications folder).
Packages -> Settings View -> Install Packages/Themes
Search for and install ftp-remote-edit
Hit control-space to enter a master password (don’t forget this password!). Also note: some students have re-mapped control-space to allow another action (switching keyboard languages). If you have done this, you will need to go into your keyboard shortcuts and un-map the control-space shortcut.
Right-click (control-click) the Edit Servers button and select Edit Servers
Click or type all of this in:
- click New
- The name of the server: swatcs (or whatever name you want)
- The hostname or IP: cslab.cs.swarthmore.edu
- Port: 22
- Protocol: SFTP
- Logon Type: Username/Password
- Username for authentication: enter-your-username (ex: csmajor1)
- Password for authentication: enter-your-CS-password
- Initial Directory: enter /home/your-username/class (ex: /home/csmajor1/cs21) if you want
- click Save

Now click on the swatcs folder in the Remote tab, and you should see your CS files.

At this point, if you click on/open a file, make an edit, and then save the file, a green box should pop up saying “File successfully uploaded”.

Workflow

Now you can open a terminal, ssh to the CS machines (ex: ssh -Y csmajor1@cslab.cs.swarthmore.edu), login with your CS password, and run your newly-edited program on the CS computers.

From here, your workflow will be something like this:

make some edits to your file
save the file (which uses sftp to transfer the file to the CS machines)
hit alt-tab to switch to your terminal window
run your program
hit alt-tab to switch back to atom for more edits
and so on…

Graphics/X11

If you are using graphics and expect a window to pop up when you run your program, you’ll need some extra software to allow the CS machines to open that graphics window back to your laptop. Please see the Graphics/X11 section at the bottom of the remote access using ssh page for instructions on installing this extra software.

new files

To create a new file from within atom, on the CS computers, you need to right-click on the folder/directory where you want the new file to be. The image below shows the menu that pops up when you right-click on a folder. Selecting New File will pop open a box allowing you to enter the name of the new file.

reboot or restart atom

If you reboot your machine or restart atom, you’ll need your ftp-remote-edit master password again. Just hit control-space to get the pop-up where you enter your master password.

lost master password

If you forget your master password, there are ways to wipe out the old one and create a new one (see the Settings for ftp-remote-edit and wipe out the Encrypted Connection and Encrypted Password).